Panorama - Monday evening - Scientology controversy

LE

8:30 pm Monday night
Panorama
Scientology and Me: Reporter John Sweeney travels to LA to investigate the Church of Scientology and look into some of the more sinister allegations made by former members.

Can't say I blame him as he was harassed continually by Scientology emptyheads during the making of the programme. He must regret it I suppose. Maybe the programme will shed some light on how far he got pushed.

Crow

8:30 pm Monday night
Panorama
Scientology and Me: Reporter John Sweeney travels to LA to investigate the Church of Scientology and look into some of the more sinister allegations made by former members.

Can't say I blame him as he was harassed continually by Scientology emptyheads during the making of the programme. He must regret it I suppose. Maybe the programme will shed some light on how far he got pushed.

Crow

While i think as a journalist he should be able to keep his cool and remain unbiased this article on the BBC website, sheds a little light on what he went through while making this documentary.

Which could explain his loss of temper.

...While making our BBC Panorama film "Scientology and Me" I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel invaded at midnight, denounced as a "bigot" by star Scientologists, brain-washed - that is how it felt to me - in a mock up of a Nazi-style torture chamber and chased round the streets of Los Angeles by sinister strangers.

Back in Britain strangers have called on my neighbours, my mother-in-law's house and someone spied on my wedding and fled the moment he was challenged. ...

Well, if you'd read the BBC article you would see it was he who was getting stalked, not just in the US, but also with strangers visiting his neighbours and inlaws and someone watching his wedding, who then ran away when challenged.

He also said he apologised almost straight afterwards.

You seen a 40 second clip, that isn't really enough evidence to say he's an arrogant t**t.

I agree. This looks like a man at the end of his tether, and possibly extremely worried about the safety of his friends and family. It seems the Scientology kkkult knows how to harass undesirables - or 'lapsed' members for that matter.

LE

I know of a former SNCO in my own Bn. who after retirement somehow got involved with Scientology in London. I'm told he handed over thousands of pounds to them and, despite having always been a staunch Mess member and pretty well Army barmy, has completly dropped off the map and hasn't been seen or heard of for years. He'd been injured in an IRA attack a short time before he retired (remember the attacks on recruiting staff?) and I suspect was probably suffering from PTSD making him, I would imagine, susceptible to something like this. religion my ar*e, it's a money-making scam and a cult at best!

If you don't believe me, just watch the explanatory video kindly made by the producers of South Park (warning: contains some potentially libelous stuff about Tom Cruise. Outrageous in my opinion. Just because he made gay porn like Top Gun early in his career doesn't mean he actually is gay).

If you don't believe me, just watch the explanatory video kindly made by the producers of South Park (warning: contains some potentially libelous stuff about Tom Cruise. Outrageous in my opinion. Just because he made gay porn like Top Gun early in his career doesn't mean he actually is gay).

Tee hee!! TOP link that. Had me in fits of giggles and my stomach is hurting. Mrs FP had to help me up off the floor.

South Park has it spot on. I wonder if Tom has seen this particular episode. The Thetan thespians seem a trifle touchy, and I expect he'd be reaching for the phone rather quickly. Somebody needs to define to these people the difference between 'religion' and 'cult'. L Ron Hubbard most certainly falls into the latter and was patently 'away with the mixer.'

There's a multitude of whacky reasons not to join, but the fact that you need mountains of cash to plough into the cause is the most compelling.

Caubs. There are too many actors and creative arts bods in there to give it much credence. People who pretend for a living; live under a spotlight and throw everything into that may well be 'intelligent' people. But the more famous they become, the more they're forced to move around in smaller and smaller circles; believe their own publicity and start disappearing up their own arrseholes (Tom Cruise is a prime example). I don't think they can readily check into the real world - and turn into perfect fodder for the cult of Scientology. What better targets? Rich, ego-driven, searching for some kind of nirvana or perfection of mind and body.

I was surprised by Nancy Cartwright (who I'd always assumed to have her feet firmly on the ground) and Leonard Cohen, The Incredible String Band, JD Salinger and Aldous Huxley as lapsed members. I can only assume they must have tried it and ditched it quickly!

Caubs. There are too many actors and creative arts bods in there to give it much credence. People who pretend for a living; live under a spotlight and throw everything into that may well be 'intelligent' people. But the more famous they become, the more they're forced to move around in smaller and smaller circles; believe their own publicity and start disappearing up their own arrseholes (Tom Cruise is a prime example). I don't think they can readily check into the real world - and turn into perfect fodder for the cult of Scientology. What better targets? Rich, ego-driven, searching for some kind of nirvana or perfection of mind and body.

I was surprised by Nancy Cartwright (who I'd always assumed to have her feet firmly on the ground) and Leonard Cohen, The Incredible String Band, JD Salinger and Aldous Huxley as lapsed members. I can only assume they must have tried it and ditched it quickly!

qv PT Barnum and you'll suss it out * - also misattributed to President Abe

I caught about the last twenty minutes...interesting stuff...Gawd no wonder the delicious Nicole Kidman txtd her erstwhile ever-lovin ( the shrimp alien DNA'd Cruise) with the immortal Aussie line ' Yer dumped yer raw prawn'

Leading opponent of the Church of Scientolododgy - combat rig

I remember the minor coverage Sweeney got when he totally lost it on camera.....the most interesting thing about last night's programme was the way in which Scientology's former Director of Special Operations ( I 'spose that would be the equivalant of The Curia then ? Jesuit-In-Chief?) explained how the guy Sweeney ended up screaming at had deliberately engineered the end result.

( L. Ron Hubbard's clinical paranoia may be a clue to the methodical demonising of psychiatry I ain't saying he was wrong mind you....)

Master class in manipulating emotion.

Great tell-tale is that good Scientologists are warned 'not to read the biassed Media where you will only read bad stuff (ABOUT US) '

A seriously dodgy outfit - saddest thing of all was way in which former members are completely cut off from their own families who remain inside the 'Church' .

A lot of people Over Here regard Americans in general as a bit odd .... a lot of Americans grimace but point unhesitatingly at Kalifornia as the epicentre of whackodom..... guess which state in the Union has the highest concentration of Scientologists ?......Clue: it ain't Texas or Alaska despite the presence of the Bush dynasty in one and Palin in the other

* PT Barnum:

' Ya can fool some of the people ALL of the time...and ALL of the people some of the time....but ya cain't fool ALL of the people ALL of the time ! '

LE

Well I don't hold sway with any religion or cult myself. I thought this was less a programme on Scientology and it's beliefs and more of a programme showing what Scientology does to protect itself. The fact that a lot of the ammunition was given by defectors who stated that they still believed in scientology as a religion but not what was happening to it since the death of Hubbard and were trying to overthrow it with a splinter group called the Reformation made me think the reporter was being manipulated by the Scientologist again - just by a different bunch of them.

So, the defectors still believed in the evil lord mong and all the other crap and were expecting to be taken seriously themselves ....... ?